Artist
by 2211Nighthawk
Summary: "How come you don't draw anymore?" Kathrine asked. "I don't see a reason to paint anymore. Not anymore." "Why not start up again? Promise not to tell." "There is nothing left to paint." Sunstreaker replied. Sunstreaker centric. Minor language.


**One-shot because I was bored and slightly depressed. Sunny centric but Sideswipe does show up. Had this one and _Reunite_ on my computer so I cleaned it up and posted them. _Reunite_ unofficial comes before, its just his landing on earth. Don't need to read to understand. **

**I don't own anything or anyone, just my minor character and my ideas. **

**Have to say this because people will be people, there is no slash. If you think there is, then get your head out of the gutter. Brothers can snuggle and a guy can cry over his best friend. (Not that I'd know being of the femme variety) **

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><p>"Why the <em>frag<em> did I ever come here." Sunstreaker growled, slicking the polishing cloth over his vivid gold armor.

"Because you missed me?" Sideswipe asked, sitting against the quonset beside his twin, servos behind his helm as he soaked in the planet's sun. While his twin would never admit it out loud, Sideswipe knew that Sunstreaker was enjoying the warmth just as much as he was.

Sunstreaker snorted, flipping the cloth at his twin's helm before resuming his work. Over the bond though, he sent a flood of love that he had been forced to hold back for the millennia they had been separated and the body had frayed. In the three and half month since he had finally made planet fall, neither had left their other half's side, raw fear of being separated and the hunger for physical touch causing them to curl into each other in recharge like they had done as sparklings.

Sideswipe returned the love, his faceplates ticking up into a smile as he scooted down the wall, reclining more now than sitting. Everything was perfect.

"She's doing it again." Sunstreaker growled, pausing in his daily polishing to shoot a simmering glare in the direction of the barracks. Sideswipe didn't even need to online his optics as the annoyance, irritation, a twinge that could actually be paranoia, and a deep sense of 'why the frag is she staring at me?' flooded the bond.

"Would you relax? At least she knows what a good looking mech looks like. Though I don't know why she doesn't pay more attention to this sexy body." Sideswipe said, waving a servo with a flourish over his frame. Sunstreaker growled, shoving him over the bond but kept his gaze on the human femme.

Sideswipe onlined a single optic as Corporal Katherine Fisher glanced up from the pad she had on her lap, caught Sunstreaker's gaze, scowled, then dropping it back down.

Sideswipe snickered at the annoyance that flared across the bond.

"The frag is she staring at me like that!" Sunstreaker snarled, angrily slicking the cloth down his arm again.

"True, if she was going to stare at someone it should obviously be someone as good looking as I am and not whatever you are." Sideswipe said, deliberately shoving Sunstreaker. With a snarl at smudging the polish Sunstreaker lunged to his peds, diving at his twin. Sideswipe roared with laughter as he avoided his bulkier brother's attack by microns and scrambled away, barley managing to stay balanced on his wheeled peds. As soon as he was clear of imminent danger he folded into the sleek Corvette Stingray altmode and peeled out, the roar of the Lamborghini Murcielago hot on his tail pipe.

xxXXxx

"I swear, if she doesn't stop it I will step on her." Sunstreaker snarled, hidden optics watching the femme again.

"Oh for the love of Primus Sunny, she isn't doing anything!" Sideswipe groaned, shifting on his wheels in annoyance. They were stuck on sentry dusty, which was only a step up from the sheer boredom of monitor duty and by some bad luck, ended up with _her_ as their human partner.

"What is she doing!?" Sunstreaker demanded in a hiss.

"How would I know?! Ask her yourself!" Sideswipe barked, backing up and shifting over a few parking stalls. He shot a look at the human and rolled hidden optics as he realised that she was sitting cross legged on the ground, white pad in her lap, a stylus of some kind scratching across the surface. The Bluetooth in her ear showed she was far from distracted.

Sunstreaker lasted half a minute more before he was on the other side of Sideswipe, the silver 'Vette between him and the fleshling.

"No. I hate humans. They're gross and get organic slag all over the place." Sunstreaker grumbled, sinking low on his axils like he could hide from the prying eyes of the human.

xxXXxx

He was going insane.

Corporal Katherine Fisher was officially stalking him.

As soon as Sunstreaker heard her walk into the massive reckroom and greet Jazz, he jumped the couch and bolted out of the room to his brother surprise and curiosity. He nearly ran over Prowl, who darted a white servo out to catch the gold warrior.

"What is going on Sunstreaker. You are acting worse than Red Alert." The SIC demanded, doorwings flared in annoyance at Sunstreaker's antics and the fact of nearly getting run over.

"It's that _human!_" He hissed, jerking his arm free from Prowl's grasp. "She won't leave me alone!"

And before a confused Prowl could respond he tore off down the hall again.

xxXXxx

He couldn't avoid her.

Oh he tried.

He tried everything.

But strapped to the bed of an aircraft carrier after a recent battle with said femme sitting directly beside him with her pit spawn pad, scratching away at it with some graphite stylus of some kind, made it near impossible to ignore her.

|Ask her what the frag is she doing!| Sideswipe yelled over the bond, wheels strapped to the deck beside him but not stopping him from shifting in annoyance. |For Primus sake ask her before you drive us all insane!|

_Skritch_

_Scritch_

Sunstreaker tensed at the sound that had been grating on what miniscule patience he had for the last hour and a half.

_Scritch_

_Scritch_

She paused to glance at him, scowled again, and then picked up a rubber like piece of material.

_Squeak squeak squeak_

She again glared at him, then picked up the graphite stylus.

_Scritch_

_Scritch_

_Scritch_

He'd had enough. He was about to demand that the femme stop whatever she was doing when she spoke up first.

"You're a pain in the ass to draw, you realise that?"

The angry snarl in his engine came out as a pathetic stuttering squeak. Sideswipe burst out into laughter.

"I… I what?" Sunstreaker stammered, completely blindsided by the comment.

"I said you're a pain in the ass to draw. You're color is very hard to replicate." Kathrine said simply, not even looking up as she continued scratching away at the pad.

The rest of the trip was quiet as Sunstreaker tried to process what the frag the human had just said.

xxXXxx

"Draw?! What did she mean draw?! Humans can't draw! Their so called 'best artists' are compete amateurs compared to us! Frag, they're completely amateurs to _our_ amateurs!" Sunstreaker ranted.

"You want to see what she drew." Sideswipe groaned, face down on the berth they shared, a pillow stuffed down over his helm.

"Of course not! I've seen some of the humans "attempt" to draw us. Those are an insult!" Sunstreaker spat, pacing restlessly in their room.

"Kathrine is a pretty good artist-"

"Artist?! How dare you even call one of those carbon based organics an artist! I am-" Sunstreaker suddenly cut off, flared armor suddenly flattening against his frame. "I was an artist." He said much quieter.

"You still are." Sideswipe grumbled, rolling over so his back was toward his brother. With a very human sigh, Sunstreaker flopped onto the berth beside his twin.

"I don't know what I am anymore." Sunstreaker muttered before letting himself fall into a light dose while his brother fell into a much deeper and needed recharge. It wasn't even five klicks when Sunstreaker felt eh familiar weight of his twin pressing into his back, engine purring softly as their sparks sang in unison.

xxXXxx

He found Kathrine outside by the corner of the main hanger. She was sitting in a lawn chair, pad on her lap, graphite stylus in hand. Sunstreaker just watched her for a minute, watching the way her hand moved, gripping the stylus and sliding it across the paper in even strokes.

"If you want to look I can email you the digital copies." Katherine called, not even looking up from the pad. Sunstreaker stiffened in mild surprise before walking outside to at least acknowledge that he had heard her.

"You do have email don't you?" She asked, glancing up at the gold mech. With a snort he nodded before hacking her phone and sending her his email address.

"GoldenHottie? Cute." She muttered, glancing at her phone before typing away at it. A second later he got a ping of the email. At least a dozen images were attached to it and he opened the files, just a little curious as to see her work.

He was shocked to say the least.

"I prefer using pencil." Kathrin explained, still scribbling away. No, he corrected, sketching. Cautiously he settled to the ground beside the door, close enough to her that she knew he wanted her to keep explaining, but far enough away that it didn't look like he was interacting with the human.

"That first one I did a month after I got transferred here, before the first wave of reinforcements." She said, glancing at him. "Took me a long time to figure out how to draw you guys, you're so much more complicated than people.

The picture she was talking about was in greyscale, pencil he guessed. Optimus Prime stood in the center of the picture, most of his frame in shadow while white optics cast the angles of his faceplates into light. Beside him on his right was Ironhide, massive cannons glowing with highlights. Ratchet stood on the Prime's left, arms crossed over his chassis, his lighter colored paint showing on the edges. The angle was from the ground, looking up at the three mechs and the angle was nearly perfect. They towered over the viewer, looking just as deadly as Sunstreaker knew them to be.

"Took me a month to draw that. I was too scared to ask them to hold still." She said with a chuckle.

The second one was of Ratchet, again in shadow, looking down at his hands. She had used a blue pencil to add color, the obvious lines of energon dripping from his servos. His optics were shuttered and his entire frame seemed too heavy for him to stand.

"That one was when I found out about Jazz. I drew it after RC was killed in Egypt. He seemed so…" She trailed off, pausing in her work. "I dunno. Tired."

"He had seen far more than any medic should. We all have." Sunstreaker murmured.

The next was of Jolt, relaxing in the recroom with a cube of energon in servo, Bumblebee beside him.

"That one was fun. I like those two. Bumblebee is so cute when he wants to be and Jolt is such a sweet heart."

His spark stopped when he saw the next picture.

It was of Sideswipe skating away, cocky smile in place, a single sword locked in place on his bracer and resting on his shoulder guard. The entire image was done with pencil, the high lights and shading making the picture come alive. He couldn't help but smile at the image. It was his brother in every way.

"Sideswipe can be such as ass." She said with a laugh. "He flirts with girl here, and makes all the men drool with his alt mode. It's pretty funny actually."

The next image made him pause, spark surging in a feeling of unease.

"I drew that when Prowl's unit came here." She said quietly. "I heard that he and Jazz were close."

"What do you mean 'were?" He asked.

"Jazz was dead for three years. Or at least in such a comatose state Ratchet though he would never wake up. Megatron tore him in half."

It was a black and white picture that looked like it had been done with a marker of some kind. It was a side view of Prowl slumped in a chair, left elbow joint braced on his knee guard, his faceplates in his servo. His right arm hung limp over his leg and his doorwings were nearly flat against his back. He was facing a medical berth and even though the mech was laying on his back, helm toward the viewer, it was unmistakably Jazz. Again she had used a blue pencil to color in Prowl's optics. A thin line of blue trailed down his faceplates in a single tear as he gazed at the figure on the berth.

"I drew that because it was then that I finally believed you guys were more than just machines. I thought we could program robots to do anything. Act happy, sad, cocky, aggressive… but not grief. Not like what Prowl looked like when he found out about Jazz." Kathrine continued. "Took me two years to figure out that you guys are so much like us it's freaky."

"I drew the next one for Prowl after that. I think he has it in his office."

The next picture was grey scale like most of the others but was far brighter. Jazz was front and center, mouth open in a laugh, cube of energon raised to the sky. His arm was slung over the shoulders of a very annoyed Prowl but the corner of his mouth was ticked up in a tiny smile.

"It looks like he's having one Pit of a party." Sunstreaker commented, smirking at the picture.

"They said that Jazz liked to party a lot." Kathrin said with a laugh. "Thanks to a very clever, and illegal, plan from Prowl, they somehow managed to syphon enough power off the States' power grids to give Ratchet the power he needed to reactivate Jazz. Blew every power station in this half of the States. But it got him back online."

The next few images were very basic in nature but each a work of art.

Bluestreak laying on the ground, sighting though his scope at a blurry target far in the background.

Ironhide and Ratchet sharing a drink at a table, Ironhide's helm tipped back in laughter.

Bumblebee crashed on the recroom couch, his human charge Samuel with his feet up on his guardian's shoulder guard, leaning into the mech's neck cables and both obviously asleep.

Ratchet yelling at Wheeljack as the inventor held what was left of his arm in his servo.

Another of Sideswipe, this time in the middle of a sparring match with Prowl, to which the silver mech was losing if by the look of 'almost' glee on Prowl's faceplates.

There was one of Ratchet deep in recharge on his desk, First Aid with his peds propped up in the corner of the desk and reading a datapad of some kind.

Another that caught is attention was of Optimus watching the sunset, facing away from the viewer. He arm was draped around the back of a femme, the sleek curves a dead giveaway.

"This was only six months ago." Sunstreaker commented.

"Yeah. I haven't drawn a lot of Optimus because he still intimidates me a little and truthfully, I'm too scared I'm gonna mess him up." Kathrin confessed. "He and Elita-1 make such a beautiful couple."

The next was of Ironhide and Chromia sharing a passionate kiss.

First Aid and Jolt doing what looked like inventory and sharing a laugh at something.

Mikala and Ratchet having a very serious standoff in the medbay, the human giving as good as she got.

But it was the next image that made his spark stop. He quickly blocked the feeling from his twin, not wanting him to worry. He couldn't speak as the image was permanently seared into his processor.

"When Prowl said that you had been separated from the group, that nobody knew where you were, Sideswipe hopped that you would have met up with the femmes." Kathrin said. "When they showed up but you never did he flipped. He… went on a rampage I guess. He completely lost it. I knew he used to be red."

The imaged was much like the one of Prowl in mourning, done with a black marker.

Sideswipe was facing a wall, right servo in a fist against the wall, shoulders hunched. The lighting came from a single dim source directly overhead, casting most of his frame in sharp contrast. His optics were in shadow, faceplates twisted into a scream, whether of fear, or pain he didn't know. Red paint dripped off his armor in what looked more like blood, pooling at his peds while his current silver showed underneath. Out of the darkness behind him reached a yellow servo, a single point of blue up in the darkness marking where the hidden mech's optics would be.

"I didn't know what you looked like, I only knew that you were yellow. Or gold." She said quietly shrugging.

"He…" Sunstreaker trailed off, unable to even say what he though. He knew that Sideswipe was strong but if he had broken down like that…

"The next one is better." Kathrin added.

Slowly he turned to the next image, unable to get the image of raw pain out of his processor.

The next image made him smile, ashamed to know it was because of a human.

He and Sideswipe were both in their altmodes, parked on the edge of a cliff overlooking what he thought was Las Vegas. While normally he hated anyone drawing him because they never made him look good enough, this was almost perfect.

"That one I cheated a little, I had to look up reference material to get your ass right." Kathrin said with a laugh. "Sideswipe loves the picture."

"He's seen it?" Sunstreaker asked in surprise.

"Yeah. He likes my pictures." She said with a shrug.

The next image was also seared into his processor, but for an entirely different reason.

"Told you you were a pain in the ass to draw."

The picture was beautiful.

It was a full color of him and Sideswipe. They were sparring as only they could in a rush of gold and silver and razor sharp swords and white reflections. To anyone else the swirl of colors would look like a mess, but to Sunstreaker he was able to pick out every single detail. The images captured them perfectly, Sideswipe's thrill, speed, and devotion to his brother and Sunstreaker's raw power, aggression and love for his Twin.

He was rendered speechless.

"That's why I've been watching you. You're hard to draw and harder to impress." Kathrin said with a shrug. "Hope you don't mine?"

"No. I…" Sunstreaker was rendered speechless.

"Sideswipe said that you used to be an artist on Cybertron." Kathrin said quietly.

"I…was."

"How come you don't draw any more? He showed me a picture you painted. He said it was someplace called Kaon. Before the war?"

Sunstreaker imminently knew which one she was talking about. He had only painted a single picture of Kaon's intimidating and jagged city-scape.

"I don't see a reason to paint anymore." Sunstreaker said quietly, subconsciously accessing the long ago saved file to view the image himself.

Jagged black spires of Kaon's pre-war unique buildings stabbed into a red and purple sky with Cybertron's twin moons. Smoke billowing up from the factories while white pinpricks dotted street and apartment lights.

"Not anymore." He repeated.

"Why not start up again? Promise not to tell anyone." Kathrin said with a smirk, glancing up at the massive gold warrior.

In answer he accessed his subspace and pulled out a large datapad. It was much bigger than the average, half the thickness but nearly four times the surface area. To his surprise, after eons of war the thing till worked, the screen flickering for a moment before the page lit up.

It was half finished.

Iacon spread out across the page in brilliant colors of its long ago Golden Age. As it swept to the right, the lights faded, the darkness growing and the destruction expanding to take over the right side of the screen in a deathly chilling image of War.

Hesitating for a moment, he finally set the sketchpad down, leaving his servo under it as though to protect it from the ground when in reality it was to let the human see the image.

"There is nothing left to paint." He said simply, pulling the datapad back to his lap after a moment.

"Well…" Kathrine trailed off. "There must be something."

It was at that moment that he felt the love swamp his spark. His optics instantly darted up to see a sleek shape engulfed in shadow leaning against the side of the barracks, vivid blue optics watching them, the smile unhidden to his twin's spark. Seeing that he had been acknowledged, Sideswipe tipped his helm in the direction of the human, then rolled back behind the barracks.

"There might." Sunstreaker replied after a moment, realising the human had not even seen his brother.

xxXXxx

With a groan, Corporal Katherine Fisher stumbled into her room, kicking the door shut with a tired foot and letting her jacket drop to the ground in a heap. She managed to kick her boots off, somehow managing even though they were still laced up, and nearly collapsed face first onto her bed.

Reflective black caught her attention and she shot her hands out before she could crush the tablet. Rolling at the last second she landed on her back beside the thing, picking it up curiously to study it. She tapped the on button, a single image lighting up and she couldn't help but gasp.

The painting was through the sliding doors of the main hanger at a slight angle. The main focus though as on her, long brunette hair tied up in her usual braid, lounging in a chair. The barracks were in the far distance while a rising sun filled in the sky. In her hand was a pencil, tip pressed to paper and a rough, sketched in version of her twins on a cliff picture streaming from the pencil lead. On the other side of the hanger door, beside her but not close enough to be socialising, a massive golden leg stretched out, the tip of Sunstreaker's sketchpad just peeking around the doorframe.

The whole thing was done in impossibly smooth brush strokes, colors she didn't even know existed making the painting look more like a picture from a camera.

Scrawled in the corner was a complicated symbol that was a work of art in of itself. She knew without a doubt that it was Sunstreaker's name. Underneath, in much smaller words so that she almost missed it, she couldn't help but smile.

_From one Artist to Another._

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><p><strong>Personal favorite, is the one with Sideswipe in mourningmental breakdown. Its what started the whole thing. Hope you liked.**

**2211Nighthawk**


End file.
